c. 1997 Religion News Service

LOS ANGELES _ Attorneys for religious and civil rights groups Wednesday (April 2) vowed to sue the city in the wake of the City Council’s passage of an ordinance banning the soliciting of money at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

The measure, which passed Tuesday on an 11-4 vote, would bar groups from soliciting money in the airport terminal, on sidewalks outside the airport, and in airport parking areas. Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan is expected to sign the measure.

In effect, it bans two of the most ubiquitous airport groups _ the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and the Church of the Soldiers of the Cross of Christ _ from raising funds in one of the nation’s busiest airports.

Because of a Supreme Court ruling some years ago, no group can be barred from distributing literature anywhere on airport grounds.

Los Angeles city officials say 57 million passengers pass through the airport annually and the ban could mean the loss of an enormous stream of funds for many organizations.

The Los Angeles temple of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness raises around $50,000 dollars annually at LAX. Another group, active in South Central Los Angeles _ Right Way Youth Activities _ told the city council it raises about $100,000 annually at the airport.”We feel that we have the right to be there to distribute these religious literatures,”Emil Beca, president of the Hare Krishna temple in Los Angeles, told council members.”We’ll go to the Supreme Court of the United States if that’s what it takes. We’d like to remind the council that this could cost tens of thousands of dollars for the city to fight this case.” David Liberman, an attorney for the Krishna society in Century City, said the group would sue for an injunction to stop the city from implementing the law _ both under the First Amendment and under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

The Supreme Court is currently considering a case challenging the constitutionality of RFRA, the 1993 federal law making it more difficult for governments to interfere with religious practices.

In recent years, however, court rulings have not favored religious groups in their challenges of governmental solicitation bans.

In 1992 _ before RFRA _ the Supreme Court, in another Hare Krishna case known as Krishna Society vs. Lee, upheld a solicitation ban instituted by the New York Port Authority, which operates three airports in New York and New Jersey.

The authority outlawed solicitation within airport terminals, permitting solicitors to collect funds only on sidewalks and parking areas around Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark Airports.

It did, however, reverse another portion of the ban that barred the distribution of literature within the terminals.

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Airport authorities in Atlanta, Miami and Dallas have also banned solicitation. O’Hare International Airport in Chicago does not allow solicitation or leafletting. San Francisco International Airport allows non-profit organizations to solicit from officially designated booths, but only after they have first registered with the city.

A solicitation ban at St. Louis’ Lambert International Airport was struck down in 1993 by a Missouri state court. A challenge to the Miami solicitation ban is pending in a Miami federal court.

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Liberman said that because solicitating funds is central to the Krishna ritual of”sankirtan,”the ordinance may be vulnerable to challenge under RFRA.”This is an evangelical, revival movement that feels obliged to spread its doctrine everywhere, to every country and every nationality,”Liberman said. Fund raising is”a core practice of the Krishna Consciousness group. I think under RFRA we would prevail.” An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California said his group would probably join any litigation against the ordinance.”The ordinance is unconstitutional in going way beyond the Supreme Court decision in Krishna Society vs. Lee,”Sam Mistrano, the ACLU’s legislative director, told council members during Tuesday’s action on the measure.”The Supreme Court said it was OK for airports to ban solicitation in the terminal,”Mistrano said.”However (the Los Angeles) ordinance also bans it from the sidewalks outside, from the parking lots and even from the sidewalks outside the parking lots. This ordinance doesn’t seem to want to protect travelers so much as destroy these charities.” Opponents of airport solicitation said the measure is designed to curb the airport’s sometimes unruly fund-raising activities.”One of the airport terminal managers described to us last week where he had to break up a fight between two people dressed as priests over who was going to have that position,”said Ruth Galanter, a councilwoman whose district includes the airport.

For visitors coming by air, she said,”the first ambassador for the city of Los Angeles is a panhandler.” MJP END AQUINO